In this post from Jason Norwood-Young, he shares his opinions on the lifespan of PHP - that maybe, just maybe, PHP has passed its prime.

A friend recently told me that PHP is on its way out, Ruby on Rails is where it's at. I scoffed. I chuckled. Then I gave it some thought. Could PHP have had its day?

[After my research] I have to conclude that my friend might be right in one respect - PHP has had its day. If the trend continues, it means that PHP will one day not be the hottest thing on the web like it is right now.

PHP still has plenty of legs, and it will take quite a bit to wind it. I'm not sure what will take its place, but somehow I don't think Ruby on Rails will be the successor. PHP's advantage over the rest is that it's a web application, through and through. It doesn't try to also be a desktop application language, a server application language, a widget application language... it just spits out web pages fast and efficiently.